[eli5] Why does 1g of protein give 4 calories, while protein is used in muscle building, so if not taken beyond limit, all protein would be used in muscle building and not respiration to give off energy?

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Okay so this assumes that calories are basically energy from respiration, if im wrong please correct me as well, i know that a calorie is considered the energy to heat up 1g of water i think or something, but generally its energy , and the body currency of energy is ATP which is mainly from respiration right, so amino acids from protein are usually not used in respiration unless taken beyond a limit, but that isn’t taken into account when calculating its calories, every 1g of protein gives off 4 calories same amount as carbs, which is the main source of fuel for respiration lol, is there something i misunderstood about calorie concepts?

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9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

By reading through your replies to other comments I think I can see what has you confused.

You are conflating how many calories a particular food gives you, with how many calories you absorb from a particular food.

Let’s try a analogy.

Let’s say I have a heap of envelops

pink envelopes (protein) have $4 inside

Blue envelopes (carbs) have $4 inside

Green evolopes (fats) have $8 inside

Let’s say I give you a pink envelope.
I also give Ann and Bill a pink envelope each.

you owe John $2

Ann owes John $1

Bill doesn’t owe John anything

When someone gets a PINK envelope John takes what is owed to him before they even get to look inside the envelope. But only from the PINK envelopes

So when you look there is $2

When Ann looks there is $3

When Bill looks there is $4

Now let’s say there are boxes full of a mixture of different colour envelopes. (Food)

And Jim from the government has the job of trying to create a system to label them so everyone can determine what they will get from each box.

Jim can’t know who owns John what, it changes constantly and is different for every person.

How should Jim label the boxes?

They only way is to label how much is in the envelopes.

Not how much each person gets to keep from the envelopes. (Which is what your trying to do)

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